Review: The procurement, storage and quality assurance of frozen blood and tissue biospecimens

Abstract

The preserved frozen biospecimens are ideal for evaluating the genome, transcriptome, and proteome. Here we present a current overview of experimental data regarding procurement, storage, and quality assurance that can informthe handling of frozen biospecimens. Degradation of frozen biospecimens can be affected by collecting methodology, premortem agonal changes and warm ischemic time during surgery. Tissue storage at? 80 C can preserve DNA and protein but RNA show degradation at 5 years, therefore storage at ? 150 C provides significant advantages. Histologic quality assurance of tissue biospecimens is typically performed at the time of surgery but should also be conducted on the aliquot to be distributed because of tissue heterogeneity.Additional qualityassurance testing should be dictated by the anticipated downstream applications.